


Eridan Ampora's Kismesis Is A Loser and Also Needs to Keep His Fingers Out of Vital Fuckin' Areas

by Newtavore



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, Comfort, Fluff, Gillplay, Injury, Injury Recovery, Lots of Handwaving, M/M, Medical Inaccuracies, More Like Gillplay Gone Wrong..., No Sex, Sickfic, Troll Anatomy, Troll Gills, You Don't Normally See That Together Do You
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-30
Updated: 2014-03-30
Packaged: 2018-01-17 13:35:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1389640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Newtavore/pseuds/Newtavore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even though your gills are not fucking made to have things shoved in them, it felt really, really good when he did. Shove things in them, that is.</p><p>Until he pushes too far, and wow, it is not a good feeling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I Don't Think That's Meant to Go There…

**Author's Note:**

> aha ha aha see this is what happens when i whine to friends about the lack of non-rapey kismessitude shit at four am
> 
> so yeah

"Sollux fuckin' Captor, get your nasty fingers out of my insides  _right fuckin' now_ ," you snarl, teeth bared, and he sniggers and you, fucking  _sniggers_ , and teases your internal gill filaments in response. 

 

 

Your kismesis has, over the past few weeks, apparently decided to see how far he can push you when it comes to sticking things in places where  _things should not be stuck_. This was probably prompted by your actions the first time he'd slid his claws into your gills, on accident: you had, in an embarrassing display of negligence, choked out the loudest noise you'd ever made to date and come messily all over the both of you. 

 

Because- and this was the part that really got you, this was the terrible part- even though gills are  _not fucking made to have things shoved in them_ , it felt really, really good when he did. Shove things in them, that is.

 

Like now. 

 

He's knuckle deep in your left side, lower rib-slit, carefully trimmed claws mapping out your internals, and fuck if it doesn't feel mind-numbingly good, and you  _hate_  it. You hate it because it hurts just as much as it doesn't, but you can't even tell the sensations apart anymore, everything blending together in an intoxicating, pain-pleasure cocktail that is knocking you on your fucking ass. 

 

Sollux sniggers again as he pulls a quiet whine from you, sliding in a little deeper. Fuck, if that didn't sting. But, as he'd oh so helpfully taught you, you  _like_  pain. You like pain a lot, a lot more than you should, anyways. He'd teased you about it, until he found out that it was something that made you genuinely freaked out, then he'd tied you up and showed you how to not just like it, but enjoy it. And he'd enjoyed every last second of your bitterly gratified masochism. 

 

And now he has more than an inch of his thin, spindly fingers shoved into your secondary respiratory system and you're shivering, breath coming in short pants, head spinning, because fuck it hurts but it hurts in a good way, a really fucking  _awfully_  good way, and he's dragging it on and on like an asshole when he should just get  _on_  with it already-

 

"I guess I could, if you really wanted me to," he lisps, and his stupid voice gets on your nerves so much but it also gets you going, really going, and you snarl out something incomprehensible but might have, at one point, been an order for him to  _not even dare_. 

 

Of course, the whole 'finding pain like, really sexy' thing has it's drawbacks, at times. 

 

Like now, because you were an idiot and not paying attention to how far he'd actually managed to sink his fingers. 

 

Because he's just slid his fingers deeper, even deeper, and you feel a burst of  _oww_  and something  _pops_ , and suddenly you can't breathe. 

 

"Fuck," you gasp, reaching up, pushing at his shoulders, "Fuck, Sollux,  _stop_ , fuck it's too far get- get 'em outta me  _fuck_ -"

 

You choke, coughing, and he looks confused for a second, like he can't decide whether you're serious or not. You don't blame him, really- you're a bit of an asshole when it comes to teasing, yourself, but you wish he'd just  _listen_  to you for once because you _really can't breathe_. 

 

You push at him again, frantically, but you're weakened by the activity and lack of air, so you hardly manage to sway him. He seems to get the hint, though, because he tugs his hand away, slowly, careful not to catch anything on the way out. 

 

As soon as he's removed himself from your  _goddamn internal organs_ , you struggle upright, clawing at your chest. In this position, you can choke in a few strangled gasps of air, enough to keep the spots in your vision from taking over completely, but it's not enough, fuck, fuck fuck  _fuck_.

 

"Eridan?"

 

He grips your shoulder, keeping you from falling back onto the bed, and peeks at you with his stupid anaglyph eyes from behind his equally stupid anaglyph glasses. 

 

"What the fuck?"

 

You can't respond, you just slap a hand to your mouth and hack, spattering your fingers with purple fluids. 

 

"Oh my god you're coughing up blood," he says, and he actually sounds worried now, "Fuck I actually broke you."

 

You manage to throw a weak elbow at his ribs, but he barely seems to feel it. Asshole. He could at least act like you'd injured him or something, could have thrown you a bone in your dying moments. You won't forget this. You are going to haunt the  _shit_  out of him.

 

He wraps an arm around your shoulders and holds you up, pressed against his chest, and you can feel him breathing and for a moment you are struck with jealousy because wow,  _breathing_ , such a stupidly simple thing and you can't even do it right. 

 

You cough up more fluid, and he freaks the fuck out, muttering something about killing his kismesis and it'd almost be cute if his panicking weren't making you panic more. 

 

"S'not blood," you gasp, and he tilts your chin up, thumbing away the streaks of purple from your mouth, "Fucker, c-calm the… fuck down 'm… gonna be fine…" 

 

"You sure look like it," he retorts, but his breathing slows, and you focus on the push and pull of his lungs, the steady in and out, and force yourself to somewhat match the pace he sets. It's hard work, and you keep getting interrupted by nasty liquids being expelled from your injured gillslit, but after almost ten minutes you can finally pull in a breath. Then another, then another.

 

"I'm… fuck, I'm gonna be fine," you pant, and he just looks at you with that dumb fucking expression of his, the one that says,  _'you are an idiot'_  more clearly than if he'd just said it out loud. 

 

"Eridan. I stuck my fingers in your gills and you started coughing up blood. I do  _not_  think that counts as fine," he lisps, and he actually sounds kind of serious. Huh. 

 

"Like I said, It's… It's not blood," you wheeze, and wipe some of it off your chin, "It's respiratory fluid. It flushes out the gills when they've…  got shit stuck in 'em,  _like your fuckin' fingers_ , except… hah, except you popped the layer that keeps the gills closed an'…  the lungs open."

 

"Why didn't you fucking  _tell_  me I'd stuck them in too deep?" he yelps, and zaps you a bit with his fucking psionics. This, of course, prompts you into another coughing fit, and you're just going to say farewell to this pair of pants because there's purple all over them and you don't think you're ever going to get it out. 

 

"I didn't notice," you mumble, spitting into your hand. Eugh, gross. 

 

"You didn't notice," he responds, and he sounds incredulous, like he can't actually believe what he's hearing, "You didn't notice that I'd stuck my hand too far into your _internal organs_. You  _didn't fucking notice_  that I basically gave you a  _pneumothorax_. Fuck, Eridan what is  _wrong_  with you?"

 

You cringe, a bit, and he sets a hand on your back, over the knobs of your spine, and just sighs. Sighs like he can't believe how fucking dumb you are, and hell, you agree with him right now because not noticing how much he'd managed to shove up there was really, really dumb of you. 

 

"Fucking hell."

 

You just nod miserably, and cough up more fluid.

 

"Is there anyone I can call? To come make sure you don't drown in your own disgusting excretions?" he asks awkwardly, and it's kind of hilarious because here's your kismesis, obviously worried about your continued existence and suddenly unsure of where to put his hands, and he's just so fucking awkward you can't help but choke out a messy giggle. 

 

He punches you for that, but it's a light tap compared to your normal scuffles. 

 

"You're my only quadrant, Sol," you finally say, after you've managed to get yourself under control, "But I'm gonna be fine. I'll just be coughin' up this shit for a day or two, then I'll be back t' normal."

 

To make a point, your lungs decide to make you hack another handful of shit up, and you grimace as more purple liquid drips through your fingers. 

 

"Okay, I admit, it sucks, but fuck, I'm not gonna keel over."

 

Or at least you think you won't. The first, and only other time this had ever happened, you'd gotten a huge splinter of wood lodged in your left upper gillslit during a storm, and you'd been so out of it you're missing a good three weeks from your memory. All that you remember is that you were alone, then Fef was there, and then… well, not much, and the next memory you have is of being weak and tired and absolutely miserable in bed for another week after the blank spot. 

 

Of course, you aren't going to tell Sollux that. He doesn't need to know how fucking miserable you are going to be for the next few days, if it doesn't get infected. 

 

If it does… you're fucked, well and truly fucked. 

 

"Like hell I'm just going to leave you here," he says, and for a moment you think you misheard. Did he really just say that? Fuck,  _really_?

 

"Look, I broke you, so as your kismesis it is my duty to make sure you don't stay broken, because you're already whiny enough without serious internal trauma," he mutters, ducking his head a bit, and you think you might see the tail end of a blush on his cheeks and before you can think better of it you're cracking up again, each laugh sending unenjoyable pain throbbing through your gills and your chest. 

 

"Oh shut the fuck up or I'm going to finish the job," he snarls, but he still pats you on the back, softly, catching you at just the right angle to help dislodge some of the crap that's making itself at home in your respiratory system. 

 

"Either way, I'm not leaving, and you can't make me, so you'd best stop being a wimp sooner rather than later because you have a nice hive and far be it from me to not take advantage of highblood privilege," he says, and you punch him in response but he barely feels it, you can tell. 

 

He wriggles out of bed and lifts you up with his psionics, keeping you in a vaguely upright position. The sudden movement makes you nauseous, and you are thankful  as fuck that he only moves you about four steps to your ablution block before setting you down. 

 

"What do I need to do," he says, and he's completely serious, not one ounce of sarcasm or trickery hidden in his tone, and for a moment you're taken aback. 

 

Vriska would have never done this for you- she probably wouldn't have even stopped sinking her fingers into your gills, not until you were unconscious and thus not interesting anymore. 

 

If you had died, she would have moved on to the next thing in line. She would have never patched you up like this, never helped you fix the damage she'd wrought. 

 

"ED. Hey, Alternia to ED, where's your medical shit," he lisps, and you blindly point to your bathroom cabinet, fully, almost excessively stocked with medical supplies. 

 

"I need a swab, some bandages, an' some'a the disinfectant in the red bottle, not the green or blue ones," you say, and he hurtles them at you with his psionics, barely missing your head. He has to catch them again when your attempt to grab them from the air causes you to hiss, hacking another handful of viscous liquid into the palm of your hand, and he sets them down beside you carefully after that.

 

The red bottle contains antiseptic that's safe to use on your delicate seadweller anatomy, and you start with that. Running the swab through the already swollen opercula along your lefthand ribs is almost as painful as the initial puncture was, but you need to clean out some of the fluid and gunk or it would solidify, and then you'd be truly fucked, because then it would get stuck, your lungs would get infected, and you'd probably die. 

 

So you clean out your gills despite the truly heinous amount of pain you're in, biting down on your tongue to keep yourself from making any embarrassingly pathetic noises in front of your kismesis. Sollux is just watching you, face blank, eyes hidden behind his shades. You have no clue what he's thinking, but true to his word he refuses to leave. 

 

You go through almost a quarter of the bottle and four separate swabs before you're content with the state of your internals. You're shaking hard by now, though, hands trembling so much you almost drop the roll of bandages twice before you begin attempting to wrap up your side.

 

The bandages spark red and blue, and they're lifted from your hands before you can fumble them again. Sollux has floated over to your side, and you resist the urge to flinch away when he places a hand on your shoulder because Vriska would have hit you. She would have shoved you down, ground you into the dirt, and left, laughing, not caring if you lived or died. 

 

"Let me help," he says, and he plucks the cloth from the air and stars winding it around your ribs, asking you quietly if it's too tight. You shake your head, but don't dare move after that, don't even dare to breathe just in case he gets it in his head to do something painful. 

 

You can taste blood in your mouth by the time he's done, from your bitten tongue because it hurts, it fucking hurts but you are not  _weak_ , you refuse to be seen as weak. He doesn't comment on the few sounds that make it past your teeth, or the small twitches away from his hands when he puts pressure on a particularly sore spot.

 

"I'm not going to do anything to you," he murmurs, tucking the loose end of the bandage back into the rest of the fabric, "I might hate you and find you annoying and really like pushing you around but you're my kismesis. I've hurt you enough already, don't you think?"

 

He smooths his hand down your uninjured side, checking the tightness of the bandaging. 

 

"Vriska probably would have kicked me in the gills and left," you say, and you know it's dumb to talk about your past relationships with your current partner but you're tired and hurt and very, very sexually frustrated and confused and  _so done with everything_ , "Hell, she probably would have shoved her hands even deeper when I told her to stop, it wouldn't have been the first time she made me pass out, so…" 

 

You jerk back, fins flared in threat display, when Sollux's horns and eyes crackle ominously with power. They only do that when he's mad,  _outraged_ , even, and while you've never been trapped in a room with him while he's been in such a state, you're sure it isn't pretty and right now you're incapable of either defending yourself or running away. 

 

"Is that why you're always so surprised when I don't fuck you up beyond repair? Eridan, that's not kismessitude, that's abuse. You'e injured, and not in a fun way, I'm not going to beat you or anything."

 

His hands are soft as they touch your face, wiping away the traces of purple in the corners of your mouth before he lifts you up with his powers, walking you back to you block. 

 

"I take it dumping you in the sopor is not a good idea when you've got holes in your internals?" he says, and you nod. 

 

Your gillslit wouldn't be able to handle the pressure of the bands you use to keep yourself from inhaling slime. Sopor on the injury itself would burn more than you can currently tolerate, and that pan rotting shit in your lungs sounds like an even worse idea than it in your stomach, which is definitely an achievement in your opinion. 

 

Sollux carefully dumps you on your concupiscent platform, your uninjured side hitting the nest of pillows and blankets first before the rest of your touches down. 

 

"Do you need anything?"

 

You shake your head. You're tired, tired and in pain and you want him to finish what he fucking started, so you grab his wrist as he walks past and use your considerable strength to yank him down to you, slamming your lips against his in a rough kiss. 

 

He's floating above you, knees hovering uncertainly over your platform and you just want him on top of you, in you, and you bite at his lips, lapping away the yellow that beads there. The taste of his blood is like metal and honey, addicting, and you curl your arm around his neck and pull him closer. 

 

He wraps his hands around your hips and touches down, but when he lands he jostles your damaged side, causing you to hiss into his mouth and pull away. 

 

"ED," he pants, and he's licking the blood away from his own lips and refuses you when you try to pull him in again, "ED I just fucked up your lungs we are not having sex."

 

"Fuckin' hell Sol I'll be fine," you snarl, ear fins flapping in irritation, "I'm tired and hurtin' and all I want is your goddamn bulge in my goddamn nook."

 

He shakes his head again and your snarl melts off into a whine, and you let your head fall back onto the pillows and bite your lip and goddammit you hate him right now. 

 

"ED I'm not going to fuck you."

 

You bite him. You don't know what else to do, so you sink your teeth into his shoulder and he yelps, grabs your horns and yanks your head away and stares at you like he can't decide whether he wants to kiss you or hit you. 

 

You wish he'd just pick already because you are sick of waiting for the day he gets bored of you. 

 

"ED. You're going to lay down and go to sleep. I'm not going to put you through rigorous exercise after I effectively punctured your lung," he says, and you're almost put out except the stupid, ridiculous eyebrow wiggle he does when he says 'rigorous exercise' makes you punch him in the shoulder instead, laughing painfully. 

 

Laughing prompts another coughing fit, and he rolls you onto your uninjured side and holds you there while you hack up what feels like a bucketful of disgusting respiratory fluid and foam. 

 

"Yeah, not happening," he mutters, and when did he start floating again? He's drifting above you, suspended by red and blue, and he settles down cross legged on the platform next to you, keeping a hand on your shoulder. 

 

"Even if I was sadistic enough to still be in the mood, that right there would have turned me the fuck off."

 

He hands you a towel and you shakily clean the mess off your hands and your mouth, breath bubbling in your chest uncomfortably. You are in for a miserable few days, you can tell. 

 

So you resign yourself to being watched over by your kismesis, curl up as much as you can, and force yourself to drop off to sleep, even though you can feel the weight of his eyes on your back. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> also this is not over you don't think i'd let ED escape pain and suffering that easy did you
> 
> no
> 
> /there is more to come/


	2. Yeah, You Shouldn't'a Put Shit In There…

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You should have known this would end poorly. And now you're sick and delusional and you know what? Fuck everything. Everything sucks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand yeah, here comes the part where i was iffy on it actually being blackrom anymore. I was trying to keep it black, but… i might have failed, because blackrom usually makes me uncomfortable and they might have flipped quadrants idk

 

You do get a fever. 

 

You get a fever, and it fucks you up beyond belief. You spend half your time hallucinating, haunted by dead lusii and screaming, inconsolable wrigglers. You're ashamed to say that you break down and cry with them a few times, whimpering out apologies and placations and pleas for them to please, please shut up, just _shut up_ , but they never do, they're always in the background, shrieking and screaming, the most hellish soundtrack to your every action, only made more audible by fever. The rest of the time, you're incapacitated by a wracking cough, rattling deep in your chest as the fluid in your lungs stagnates. 

 

Sollux never leaves. 

 

He stays with you, a silent presence pressed against your back when you're aware, and when you aren't you can sometimes hear his voice. You aren't sure what he's saying- it's just strings of numbers and letters, things you don't understand, him reading aloud while he codes, but he's always physically there even if his mind is lost in technology. 

 

He brings you out of some of your worst daymares, though, sinking his claws into your shoulders and shaking you until you snap awake and supporting you through the fits the shock throws you into. 

 

You aren't sure how long you've been sick when you start dreaming about Vriska, but you do. You can't decide if these dreams are worse or better than the memories of sobbing wrigglers that you were having before, because they're both terrible in their own ways. 

 

You dream about her jamming her sharpened claws in your gill slits and not pulling them out. You dream about her laughing as you drown in your own fluids, laughing and smirking and watching you die, then dumping you to the side and forgetting about you. You dream about things she's done to you before in the name of hatred, things that caused you great, unenjoyable pain, and when you're shaken awake by Sollux you don't see him, you see her. 

 

You can't tell them apart for over an hour, and that's when Sollux dumps you in a bath full of ice cold water.  The shock of it against your overheated skin almost does you in, but you sit through the experience patiently as he uses his psionics to run the water over your face, your uninjured gills, soon it feels more good than upsettingly cold. 

 

Your lefthand gills need cleaning out every night, and while you were coherent enough to deal with it the first few times, you can't handle it anymore, so Sollux takes over the job. He's hideously, uncomfortably gentle with your damaged body, and lets you sink your claws and teeth into him and cry while he flushes out the infection that's taken over you.

 

You aren't coherent enough to hide how much pain you're in anymore, and you can tell he's worried about your continued survival, but he doesn't leave you alone. He speaks with you almost non stop, now, his voice a running commentary in the back of your daymares and visions, always there. 

 

He speaks of everything from embarrassing wrigglerhood stories to quadrants to hopes and dreams and pleads to please just get  _better_ , goddammit, you're my  _match_ , my  _rival_ , you  _can't fucking die_. 

 

Then, things go hazy, and you lose a good chunk of time. 

 

 

When you wake up again, Sollux is curled around you, his chest pressed against your back, and you can hear the tired hitch of his breathing. He only snores when he's exhausted, and he's definitely snoring now, the soft, buzzing drone of his breath moving the hairs on the back of your neck. 

 

You're disgusting, sweaty and hurting and miserable, but the painful heat of fever wasn't burning you anymore, and though your breath wheezes and bubbles in your chest, you aren't wracked with agony for every long suffered inhalation, so you think you're getting better. 

 

You fall back asleep. 

 

He's awake when you next stir, leaning against the headboard with his laptop on his lap, your back pressed against his legs, one of his hands buried in your hair. When he sees you're awake, he tugs on the fistful playfully, but his nonchalance does nothing to cover the sheer relief in his eyes. 

 

"Finally," he says, "I thought you were gonna sleep forever."

 

His tone his light, but you can tell he means it, that he was afraid you weren't going to wake up. If he had listened to you when you'd told him to go away, you might not have. 

 

"Well I'm awake now," you rasp, voice tripping over the w's, stuttering in a way you haven't since you were much younger. 

 

You feel weak and small, wrung out, but when you cough, your lips aren't coated in foam, and no fluid spatters your hands. Your left side is tender and sore, but not a fiery line of pain anymore, and you can actually move your arm away from your side. 

 

"How are you feeling? Because if it's anything like how you look, we might have to call a drone to come put you out of your misery."

 

"Like I got sent through a subjugglator gauntlet," you mutter, wincing as you force your arms to hold your weight. Sitting up has never been such a chore. 

 

You're glad he doesn't try to help you, that he lets you lever yourself up on your own, because you are already confused by him and his actions and his continued presence. You wonder if he's lost interest in you, if this is just a cursory, 'make sure you aren't dead' before he leaves and never comes back. 

 

How can he see you as worthy of him when you were laid low by a single touch? 

 

"So pretty much how you look, then. Maybe with less face paint smears."

 

He shuts his laptop and just watches as you stagger to your feet, but you only make it four steps before you have to stop, leaning against a wall and breathing heavily. It feels like you can't get enough air, and you know it's just the pain tricking you into thinking you're suffocating but it's still a nerve-wracking experience. You can feel the injured portion of your gillslit spasm with every breath, but you're healed enough not to be leaking fluids, so you're healed enough to get yourself to the fucking bathroom. 

 

You take another few steps, and by then it's easier, because you're there and you have the sink as a handhold. Turning the water on and turning it as cold as it'll go is another challenge, but you manage. You are disgusting, and you are not going anywhere or doing anything until you have cleaned the stench of sweat and sickness from your skin. 

 

Sollux floats into the room and lazily settles himself on the sink, just watching as you drag yourself into the ablution trap. 

 

"Just making sure you don't drown," he says, snickering because you have fucking _gills_ , drowning would be the _last_ thing to kill you. 

 

"You just want to stare unabashedly at my naked body," you reply, and he laughs as he fiddles with the shit on your counter, purposely fucking up the order you'd carefully cultivated. 

 

"You know, that was organized alphabetically by type," you growl halfheartedly as you reach up, grabbing a bottle of shampoo from the side bar, not even bothering to stand up. Your legs wouldn't be able to support you anyways, no sense in making Sollux come rescue your platonically pathetic ass. 

 

"And now it's organized by size, in twos," he retorts, and you groan because it's going to take forever to fix it. 

 

You both lapse into silence as you scrub the filth from your body, until he breaks it. 

 

"I hate you," he says, and his voice is small and almost pitiful. 

 

"I hate you and I care about you and I hate you because you make me so fucking worried sometimes," he says in a big rush, and you hear the low hum of psi as he curls up on the floor by the trap, "I thought you were gonna die, ED, I thought you were gonna fucking die and it would have been  _all my fault_."

 

"I probably would'a, if you'd left like I told'ya to."

 

You listen to him snarling under his breath as you wash the soap from your hair, reaching for another bottle as soon as the last of the suds run down the drain. 

 

"You're so fucking  _stupid_  sometimes," he mutters, and you wince as you hear his head bang against the hard edge of the trap, "I hate you so much, I hate you, I hate you,  _I hate you_  and you almost  _died_ -"

 

"But I'm not dead, I'm gonna be fine, so suck it up like a big grub an' stop worryin' about it."

 

You're sure you could have handled that better. 

 

"ED you didn't have to deal with the shit that I went through!" he nearly shrieks, voice cracking, and yeah, you  _definitely_  could have handled that better, "You were fucking out of it, okay, you were so fucking out of it half the time I couldn't tell if you were already gone or not, you were sick and I thought you were  _dying_  and you kept saying all these  _horrible fucking things_  and-"

 

He stops, takes a deep breath, and continues, calmer this time, "You were really fucking sick, okay, really sick. It was a mess. I'm just… I'm just really glad you didn't die. Because then I wouldn't get to come over and fuck up your shit anymore and that would just be a tragedy."

 

You waste some time examining your inflamed opercula, turning everything over in your head. The actual slit for the gill was violet around the edges, and the frills looked a little swollen, but it wasn't leaking and it looked much better than you remembered. 

 

"…What did I say?"

 

"Out of everything, that's what you focus on?" he asks, and you can see his silhouette shake its head through the curtain, "Horrible shit, okay, you started talking to things that weren't there, lusii and wrigglers and stuff, and then there was a little bit where you thought I was Vriska and I'm sorry but we are going to have to go over the proper definition of a kismesis because whatever the fuck you two were it wasn't that okay, but…"

 

And he stops, he stops and when he starts speaking there's… it almost sounds like a tinge of awe, in his voice. 

 

"I never realized how fucking hard your job is on you," he says slowly, carefully, "Being an Orphaner. You never seem to let it bother you, but it really does, doesn't it?"

 

"Of course it fuckin' does, I make a livin' offa consignin' wrigglers to a slow death'a starvation or a quick death'a gettin' eaten or killed by somethin' bigger'n them," you bite out, "Not a lotta good options there, okay, but it ain't like I got much'a a choice, it's either that or kill off everyone because Gl'bgolyb gets a little tetchy when its hungry."

 

He doesn't respond for almost a minute, a minute that you spend angrily scrubbing out your hair for a third time because it still feels greasy under your fingers. 

 

"It's… admirable," he finally says, voice soft, almost inaudible over the crash of water over your head, "It's… you put yourself through a lot of crap, don't you. You talk shit about killing off everyone but it'd be really easy for you to do that, wouldn't it? Just stop feeding that monster thing in the ocean and boom, everyone's dead. But instead you're… you're basically single handedly keeping everyone on this fucking planet alive."

 

"Not true," you deny immediately, "Fef's perfectly capable'a feeding her own lusus, at least till she finds someone else to help her out. I'm just…"

 

"Just shut up and let me respect you for once you piece of shit," he mutters, and you laugh because he sounds like a cranky wriggler, whiny and pouting. 

 

Laughing doesn't hurt anymore. Sweet. 

 

You shut the water off, still displeased with your level of cleanliness but physically incapable of doing anything else. Sollux tosses a towel up over the curtain rod, and it catches on your horns. You grab it and he tugs it away, red and blue psi flickering over the purple cloth. 

 

"Just give me the fuckin' towel."

 

"Maybe I wanna see you buckass nude."

 

"Maybe I don't care what you want."

 

He drops the towel back on your head, and you stand up on shaky legs. It's hard to dry yourself off when you have to keep one hand on the wall to stay upright, but you try your best. Your hair is still dripping all over the place but you're far beyond caring. 

 

There's no point in being immaculate and put together right now. You are weak and tired, and if Sollux has decided to leave you, nothing you could do would make him stay. The asshole was stubborn like that.

 

He looks up when you step out of the trap, eyes zeroing in on your wounded side. 

 

"That doesn't need to be cleaned out again, does it?" he asks, and you shake your head. 

 

"It's good. Nothin's leakin', and the swellin' should go down in the next day or so."

 

He looks relieved, and you smirk when you realize that your nasty biology had probably grossed him the fuck out.

 

You studiously avoid looking at yourself in the mirror. The fact that your glasses are nowhere to be found helps your goal of not seeing your face anytime soon, because everything further away than about five inches was an indistinguishable blur, but you don't even want to risk it.  You have no desire to see how terrible you look. 

 

Sollux quietly follows you around your hive, just watching you. It's a little weird- he's hovering like he's afraid to let you out of his sight, and you kind of want to kick him because he's being an annoying little shit.

 

"So you're good?" he asks, "No risk of you suddenly, I don't know, developing a temperature not uncommon in tealbloods and keeling the fuck over?"

 

"I'm fine," you reply, though you notice with a frown that the pajama pants you threw on are now about a size and a half too big, "I'm not gonna keel over, swear."

 

"Good. Because not having you around to fuck with would get really boring, really fast," he mutters, sitting cross-legged in midair as you stagger over to your coon. You think the damaged gillslit is healed enough to withstand the pressure of the bands, and an actual day's sleep will do you worlds of good. 

 

He stares as you snap the bands over the gills on your neck and ribs, and hovers over the coon as you settle into it, the slime's potency turned up the slightest amount. 

 

"I'll be gone when you wake up," he says, and you nod, eyes sliding shut. You're out of it much sooner than usual, your exhaustion and recent sickness leaving you more suspect than usual to the slime's power, but you can still barely feel the brush of lips against yours, and you definitely feel the sharp nip of teeth against your ear fin. 

 

"Get better soon," he says, "I hate you."

 

"…hate you," you slur, and he laughs against your mouth before pinching your lip between his ragged fangs. 

 

"Of course you do. Now go to sleep stupid, you need to get better so I can kick your ass around some more."

 

You're asleep before he finishes the sentence.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the end.


End file.
